Ripple CEO pleased with SEC legal battle progress, XRP jumps 17%

NEW DELHI (CoinChapter.com) — Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse is confident in his company’s prospects in the ongoing legal battle with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. XRP is jumping, meanwhile.

In Dec. 2020, the SEC charged the San Francisco-based firm, along with Garlinghouse and executive chairman Chris Larsen, with engaging in the illegal sale of securities through XRP. Ripple fought back with the argument that XRP is a utility token, not security.

Ripple registered a “big win” against the SEC earlier this week. The court ordered the SEC to reveal internal documentation concerning its former director’s crypto speech. The documentations expect to show the SEC calling Ethereum and Bitcoin utility tokens.

As such, Ripple could prove that the SEC treated XRP unfairly by calling it a security token.

The lawsuit has gone exceedingly well, and much better than I could have hoped when it began about 15 months ago. But the wheels of justice move slowly.

Brad Garlinghouse told CNBC at the Paris Blockchain Week Summit

Garlinghouse said Ripple has not sold a single enterprise contract to any U.S. financial institution in the past year, as it is “already operating in the worst-case scenario.”

The Ripple CEO stated the Ripple-SEC legal battle holds importance for the entire crypto industry in the U.S. In detail, Ripple’s loss would mean the SEC would likely deem other tokens trading on any U.S.-based exchanges as securities.

Also Read: ‘Big Win’ for Ripple as court orders SEC to reveal internal documents comparing XRP with utility token Ether.

As a result, the platforms would need to register with the SEC, erasing the privacy associated with cryptocurrencies since SEC would require owners to divulge their identities. Ripple is a fintech firm that claims to be the blockchain-based alternative to SWIFT.

XRP Invalidates Ascending Triangle Setup

XRP prices failed to break out of a bullish technical pattern called the ascending triangle. A horizontal line connecting swing highs and a rising trendline connecting swing lows forms the pattern.

In an ideal world, buyers would enter the market as the trendlines close the gap, pushing prices above horizontal resistance with heavy volumes. However, XRP prices broke below the ascending support of the triangle setup on Apr 6.

The price target for a breakout is equal to the height of the triangle at its thickest point. As such, the Ripple token’s prices might be looking at a drop of nearly 35% from its current price level ($0.777) to reach $0.506.

Price Chart

In addition to XRP failing to breakout above the ascending triangle pattern, the token’s 20-day moving average (red wave) might move below its 50-day MA (yellow wave), forming a bearish pattern called a death cross.

Traders usually view the pattern as a sell signal, which might result in XRP prices ending their current uptrend. However, the Ripple token jumped more than 17% from Apr 11’s low ($0.681) to reach an intraday high of $0.798 on Apr 15.

A death cross would likely see XRP prices fall to immediate support near its 100-day MA (purple wave) at $0.75. Further sell-off could result in the Ripple token falling to support near $0.711.

Also Read: XRP eyes a 25% uptrend while judge slams SEC’s Motion to Strike Ripple’s Fair Notice Defense .

Finally, XRP has support near $0.683, a price level that the Ripple token has tested as support several times between Feb 7 to Apr 13 this year.

Conversely, XRP needs to flip immediate resistance from its 20-day MA (red wave) near $0.79 before moving to challenge resistance near $0.824. Moreover, the Ripple token’s 200-day MA (green wave) acts as resistance for XRP near $0.87.

The $0.87 resistance level has rebuffed XRP uptrends several times between Dec 28, 2021, to Apr 1 this year. Moreover, the momentum oscillator MACD is slowly moving to bullish levels.

Negative bars on the MACD histogram, which charts the difference between the MACD line (difference between 12-day and 26-day EMA) and the MACD signal line (9-day EMA of MACD), are contracting. The indicator might soon chart a bullish crossover between the MACD and signal lines.

Traders often interpret the pattern as a buy signal, which would add bullish cues to XRP’s prices.

At the time of writing, XRP was trading at $0.782, up 7.71% on the day.